Did you know that this beautiful artwork... link
Is actually "Egyptian Princess" 1968 by Frank Frazetta: link
He's done some fascinating and disturbing work. I encourage all to check out his stuff. Here's a gallery: link
And there's a documentary currently showing about him on IFC. I saw this one and immediately recognized it.
Mala-Kot wrote: Very intresting !!
Queen always knew how to choose the perfect artwork for thier albums.
Ehh...I dunno, I always thought their album covers were uncreative. "Jazz" and "The Game" are boring, same with "The Works". "A Kind Of Magic" isn't bad, but it's not the best..."The Miracle" is just freaky.
"Innuendo" and "Queen II" are my favorites.
I love all the Grandville stuff from Innuendo.
Incidently, I just realized that site is calling it "Queen" rather than "Princess". The documentary called it "Princess" so that's what I was going by.
How can you forget News Of The World ? IMO it had the best artwork in any Queen album.
I guess I'll have to agree with you that there are some albums that had real simple artwork in them !
The album covers from "Queen" to "News Of The World" were great (my fault for not saying that). But I would've liked it if the characters on NOTW represented the band members a little better, haha.
I still like the Jazz cover...it doesn't give you any idea at all of what's inside, which I like.
And the original Game covers on LP were cool since they were shiny (printed on an aluminum-foil type material).
Jazz was better on a big album too...a nice shiny black. Everything looks bad on a CD cover :)
I think the Miracle cover is fantastic. Yes, it might be freaky (I think the eyes on the back cover are more freaky though). Really good vision to come up with that cover.
NOTW is the best though I think. Love the way the LP was a gatefold (if I remember rightly - haven't got it out for years) for the whole picture.
Kind Of Magic fitted the theme well in a light hearted manner.
Innuendo was good - different. i liked the way the singles tied in with the theme.
INNUENDO- album and the singles, keeping the same kind of a a feeling, same sense of surrealism, great (awesome!) Grandville's illustrations... By far the best...
Interesting!!
i don't like so much "the works"(boring) and hot space(not so original, many bands uses that effects) covers. My favourite are ANATO and Innuendo.
The vcovers with faces and members are made to call the attention of people in the shops that are looking for their idols ;)
goinback wrote: I still like the Jazz cover...it doesn't give you any idea at all of what's inside, which I like.
And the original Game covers on LP were cool since they were shiny (printed on an aluminum-foil type material).
Jazz was better on a big album too...a nice shiny black. Everything looks bad on a CD cover :)
I have The Game vinyl with the shiny aluminum cover, too. That's what made that cover cool.
IMO, too flashy an album cover can distract from the music which is why you are buying it in the first place. Look at The Wall or Dark Side of the Moon. Those covers were pretty boring, but the music was fantastic! Same thing with The Works or The Game. The music is what counts.
Now, having said that....News of the World had very cool artwork! =)
Mala-Kot wrote: Very intresting !!
Queen always knew how to choose the perfect artwork for thier albums/singles.
Aren't those Maltese singles and their bizarre covers pirates/bootlegs anyway?
Either way, I'd bet everything I own that the members of Queen had absolutely nothing to do with the cover of that particular single.
Well it's pictured in the Hollywood release of SHA. Unfortunately it states (France). LOL
It's also pictured in the 2nd row of the "Box Of Tricks" poster.
Where the hell is Malta anyway? I love their balls.
Edit: "The Maltese Archipelago lies virtually at the centre of the Mediterranean, with Malta 93kms south of Sicily and 288kms north of Africa.
Gibraltar is 1,826kms to the West and Tel Aviv is 1,940kms to the East." link
I take it that last part of your post was for the benefit of our North American friends. ;)
Trancer's page mentions that it was a radio-station promo which had the UK single inside, but I'm sure I've seen a page somewhere that goes into detail about all the Maltese covers and there unofficalness.
Anyway, there's no way that Queen would have seen the design-proof for this link
and said, "THAT'S the classy font we've been looking for! Those are the images we want to represent Fred's magnum opus to our Portuguese fans! Those caricatures are fantastic! We LIKE it!".
Can you even tell which ones are Bri, Rog and John? I think John's bottom-right, but I'd rather not have to say who the thing on the left looks like.
These days it sounds like Brian and Roger and probably Jim Beach have to give approval to things for them to be 'official', but I suspect that it was much different in the early days. It may have been left up to the individual branches of EMI and Queen having no choice but to rely on their judgement.